true

“Hey, I saw you in a video.” I turned to see a familiar face looking at me. He repeated himself. “You were in a video I just saw.”

“Hey, Jordan*” I replied, smiling and grabbing my sack of groceries. He beelined toward me and began to walk out of the store with me.

The video this friend was talking about was a project I participated in as part of the True Campaign. (Watch the video.) He had found out about the recently released video through a mutual friend.

“The video was sort of about eating disorders and stuff like that, wasn’t it?” he asked quietly, a sheepish look on his face.

“Yeah, kind of,” I replied. “The True Campaign is about challenging the lies that culture, media tell us, the lies we tell ourselves, about beauty, our identity, the kind of impact we can make in the world. It’s about being aware of the issues we might struggle with, like body image, disordered eating, things that steal from us.”

He looked at me, then looked down at his fingers, tangled together. “It’s just such an obsession for me. Counting calories, thinking about what I’m eating all day long. I eat something bad, something I don’t think I should eat, then I fast the rest of the day. I feel so much guilt and shame. Then I get hungry, so I eat whatever is right in front of me, usually something bad for me, but I spit it out before I swallow it. Then I feel even more guilt for spitting it out. I hate living this way. So obsessed about it all.”

In the space of 10 seconds, this friend (who I never would have suspected as having an eating disorder) basically told me he lives in a binge-starve cycle that includes chewing and spitting. I couldn’t believe he had shared so honestly with me, and in the parking lot of a grocery store, no less. I guess it was the most appropriate place, come to think of it.

And I recognized it. Maybe not that exact struggle. But the guilt, the obsession, the fear, the shame. And, by God’s grace, mercy and healing, I’ve come to the other side. A place where I know who I am. A place where I see myself beautiful. A place where I can make an impact. So I spoke.

“The True Campaign is for you. It’s about this exact stuff. Getting honest with ourselves about these things we wrestle with. Getting to the heart of the lies, the root of the issue. And becoming who we have been called to be. All this obsessing, it steals life from us. When we move away from the extremes of obsession and carelessness, we meet in the middle, at a place of balance and respect. Respect for our bodies, our minds, our relationships.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, his face brightening, his hands looser at his side. “There’s so much more to life than this shame, isn’t there?” he said. Then he looked out across the parking lot and smiled at some distant hope that was just for him, for today. And he had found it, even in a short & honest conversation about truth. And it was all so much closer than he thought; hope, truth, and freedom, that is.